detained on trumped-up charges. The French constitution, it may be noted, protects members of the legislature from being arrested for criminal offences without the authority of a committee of the legislature. Our new constitution should give the same protection. These privileges are intended to facilitate the functioning of the legislature, not to benefit its members individually. The new constitution should mention them specifically. 4. Legislation Assent by the Head of State Under the present Constitution, a Bill passed by the House of Assembly and the Senate must be assented to by the President before it is promulgated as an Act of Parliament. The President therefore takes part in the legislative process; indeed, the Zimbabwean legislature is defined as consisting of the President and Parliament, and the preambles of all our Acts state that they are enacted by “the President and the Parliament of Zimbabwe”. The involvement of the Head of State in the law-making process is a survival from the days when laws were made by kings. It may seem anomalous to continue the practice in a modern State, where political power is supposed to be vested in the people, but most States do so. Even the constitution of the United States, which famously begins with the words “We, the people” and which vests “all legislative powers” in a Senate and a House of Representatives, requires the President to approve all Bills before they are enacted. None of the draft constitutions mentioned earlier — the Constitutional Commission draft, the NCA draft, the “Kariba draft” or the Law Society’s draft — alter the Head of State’s involvement in the making of legislation, and it is too well-entrenched for the new constitution to alter it. Strict time-limits must be imposed, however, on the Head of State’s consideration of a Bill before approving or disapproving it, and in the event of the Head of State’s rejecting a Bill the legislature must have power to compel him or her to approve it. The President should not be allowed to “veto” legislation by delaying his assent. Procedure for the passing of legislation The present Constitution deals with the procedure which Parliament must follow in regard to the passing of legislation, but its main focus is the relationship between the Senate and the House of Assembly. The internal procedures of each House are left to standing orders made in terms of the Constitution. This pattern is followed in the draft constitution of the Constitutional Commission of 1999 and in the “Kariba draft”. In the NCA draft and the Law Society drafts which have limited Senate powers, most matters of parliamentary procedure are left to be prescribed in standing orders. If the new constitution creates a Senate, and if the Senate is given the same or nearly the same powers as the lower chamber to enact legislation, then the relationship between the two chambers should be spelled out as it is in the present Constitution. The internal procedures of each chamber should for the most part be left for the chambers concerned to work out in their standing orders. The constitution should, however, lay down some minimal ground rules: 53